Abstraction

Yesterday's post led me to think about abstraction itself, in relation to babies. What kind of abstractions do babies understand? Today, without thinking about what I was doing, I started tapping different objects with a plastic spatula while carrying the baby around in a Baby Bjorn. He suddenly started laughing. Encouraged, I went up to everything around me and tapped it a few times. He laughed each time I did it. I wonder what was going through his mind.

Perhaps it was just the unexpected stimulation of the different sounds being produced; but perhaps it was also something a little more abstract, the idea that "Mommy is doing something silly, something just to entertain me." Surely this is what he is thinking when I pick him up and place his stomach against mine and bring his face close to mine, saying "hello BABY" in an excited way, something that always makes him smile or laugh.

One of the first times I heard him laugh was when we stood under a maple tree and he watched the late afternoon sunlight flickering through its leaves. That seemed to me a laugh of pure delight--"I didn't know that the world contained something like THIS in it!" But the laughter about the spatula hitting different objects and creating different sounds seems a little more complex.

I really have no clue, however, as to what abstract concepts my baby is starting to grasp. And does anyone really know when and how we first learn about abstractions? I'm sure many graduate theses have been written on the subject--but who knows for sure? Not me--and maybe that's good. It's such an unparalleled pleasure, sometimes, to stare at my baby's thoughtful expression and just wonder what he's thinking.